Warren Plath
August 24-27, 1953
Sylvia has shielded herself
with a coffin lid as long as
I can remember. She vampires
under full moon, sleeps fifteen
hours or not a wink. My sister
of extremes, shifty as the moon,
Syl suns herself beachside
or rots in a dark cupboard.
She scares us like kids
on Halloween, wants to ghost
this home instead of live in it.
She leaves a note that she has gone
for a long walk and will return
tomorrow. But Mother knows better,
the lockbox of sleeping pills smashed.
Ambulance lights swirl our brains.
We phone the police, report her missing.
It seems to me Sylvia has been missing
since she returned from New York.
The neighbors scour the fields
with flashlights and hound dogs.
The headlines report Beautiful
Smith Girl Missing. Then Grammy
hears it—scuffle and moan,
like a large rodent in the cellar.
Thump from behind the wood stack.
I remove logs and panel
and find Sylvia swaddled
in a blanket, covered in vomit.
Her cheek bloody, she is blue-lipped,
blue-fingertipped, her skin pallid
purple. I feel her exhale on my palm
and carry her to the ambulance.
She nearly nailed herself
in this time, burrowed
into her wooden death box.
But the ghosts refuse her,
not enough room in this house
for another apparition.
Our father’s presence lingers.
Thank God I found Sylvia, that
on the third day she rises.
I pray that she recovers.
Sylvia’s illness weighs heavy on my back.
I grow weary, like Atlas shouldering the world.
How many times can I carry Sylvia to safety?
I do not want to lose my only sibling.
Our family’s stability hinges on her presence.
Sylvia’s novel, The Bell Jar, is a fictional account of this suicide attempt. The Boston Globe, the Boston Herald, and the Boston Post all ran stories about Sylvia’s disappearance and recovery. That Sylvia attempted suicide was not mentioned in these accounts.